


The Quiet Life

by MrProphet



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 23:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10707165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	The Quiet Life

Oz knew that he needed to get going, but he was finding it hard to tear himself away from the little community in the woods. He had stumbled upon it almost a month before and almost brought disaster down upon it then. He had woken on the outskirts of the old summer camp the morning after the last wolf moon; it must have been pure chance that he hadn’t arrived in time to kill anyone.

With a sigh, Oz turned away from the little cluster of huts and made his way back into the woods. With any luck, his van would still be hidden off the side of the road and he could be miles away by the time the sun set and the wolf started to draw him back towards…

“Going for a walk, Oz?”

Startled out of his thoughts by the very person who had been at the heart of them, Oz jumped.

Asha walked over to Oz’s side and smiled at him. “Mind if I come with you?”

“I, ah… Really wanted to be alone,” Oz replied. “Guy stuff.”

“Oh. Guy stuff. Now I really want to come with you.”

“Ash…”

“Okay, Oz, I can take a hint, but just hear me out. If you head up to the east you’ll find the sweat lodge; it’s a pretty good place for… guy stuff. Just go straight along that way; you can’t miss it.”

“I, uh… sure,” Oz replied evasively. “I’ll check that out.”

“Okay. Have fun,” Asha said.

“Sure. See ya.” Oz turned and walked away.

“See you,” Asha agreed. “See you soon.”

He turned once to take a final look at the girl. She was taller than he was and quite the least vain woman he had met in some time, wearing her jeans and baggy t-shirt carelessly over a figure which would not have shamed an Olympic athlete. Her hair was black and wild, her eyes were grey and intense; she had coffee-coloured skin and a pretty smile and she smelled of earth and cinnamon. But it was her energy that most delighted and excited him. She possessed a boundless enthusiasm that made him feel almost as though he were still an innocent.

Oz was heading east, but not to see the sweat lodge. Tonight was the first wolf moon and if he was still here, Asha would be in more danger than anyone else. When the wolf was on him, it seemed to be the women he was attracted to who drew his killer instincts most strongly.

That was what had happened with Verruca.

Oz shook his head to clear such thoughts from his mind. It did not do to dwell upon the past and besides, he did not like to compare the lively, buoyant Asha with the sullen, laconic Verruca.

To his great surprise, Oz realised that he had come to the sweat lodge after all. Curious, and still reluctant to leave the community, he surrendered to curiosity and ducked through the door.  
Inside, the air was thick with steam. He sniffed and made out the scents of coal and steam… and earth and cinnamon.

“Asha,” he said.

“Hello again, Oz.” Asha’s voice floated out of the steam.

Oz spun around as the door slammed shut behind him. “What’s going on, Ash?” he demanded.

“We don’t want you to go.” The steam swirled and Asha emerged. She had swapped her casual clothes for a long, loose robe and her thick hair hung around her shoulders. “ _I_  don’t want you to go.”

“I don’t much want to go,” Oz assured her, “but there are issues at stake that go beyond what we want; issues… you can’t understand.”

“Are you sure?” Asha asked him. “Look at the door.”

Oz went over to the door and examined it. Like many sweat lodges it was made from a wooden frame covered in hide. Unlike the doors of most sweat lodges, it was bolted to the door of a steel cage.

“This lodge…”

“Is built to cage werewolves,” Asha finished.

“Then you know? You gotta let me out… Or get out. When I change, you won’t be able to…”

Asha took another step towards him. For a moment, her face changed, black fur breaking through her coffee skin. Her eyes turned gold, long, white teeth flashed needle-bright, and then the bright smile returned.

“You… You’re a werewolf,” Oz gasped.

“We’re  _all_  werewolves. How else do you think a community like ours manages to not get taken apart by Hell’s Angels or road demons?”

"You're like me?"

“Not quite. You fear the wolf, hide from it; you think that it makes you kill.”

“It does.”

“No. Wolves aren’t murderous, Oz. It’s the clash of two natures that makes you kill; an instinctive impulse to hold your human self when the wolf comes out. The wolf is simple, the human is complex. Faced with human emotions, the wolf panics.

“I can teach you to embrace the wolf, Oz. I can help you to be stronger, better, and  _safer_. If you’ll let me.”

Oz was silent for a long moment.

“You don’t like that, do you? You don’t want to be helped; you want to find your own way.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But… I’ll stay. Ran away before. Didn’t work out.”

She smiled. “Good.”

“So… what do I do now?”

Asha slipped of her robe; she was naked underneath. “Down boy,” she cautioned. “This is just so I don’t rip anything when I change. The first thing we need to do is get rid of all those complicated emotions. We need to make you simple again.”

“And how do we do that?”

She grinned from ear to ear. “We act like children,” she said. In a flicker she had changed into a creature much lighter than Oz’s brutal wolf-form, much more like a true wolf. She cocked her ears, wagged her tail and lolled her tongue.

To Oz her body language said: “We play.”


End file.
